Book Beginning: The Forbidden Garden by Ellen Herrick

The Forbidden Garden: A Novel  by Ellen Herrick, April 4, 2017, William Morrow Paperbacks

...the heart of a mysterious English country garden, waiting to spring to life." The second book featuring the Sparrow Sisters.

Book beginning:
Graham, Lord Kirkwood put the phone down and turned to his wife, Stella. 
"Fiona says she's found a gardener," he said.
"In America? What good does that do us here? Stella asked, looking up from her book.
"Fiona thinks this person may be willing to travel - something about a bad summer in her village, a child's death, townspeople on edge, not a good thing. It's been nearly a year, but apparently everyone's still a bit shell-shocked." Graham tapped away at this laptop for a moment in silence. 

Page 56:

... With just six weeks to research, select and plant the early stages of the Kirkwood garden, to cheat the soaking rain that swept through weekly (not to mention look at a bunch of dusty tapestries that might tell her nothing more than she already knew from her own research,) Sorrel barely had time to register the face of London or what it would be like to know the stories. 

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

First Chapter: Losing Me by Sue Margolis

Losing Me, a novel by the English author Sue Margolis,  published July 7, 2015 by NAL

First chapter:
As she sipped her coffee in the early-morning calm, there were no augurs or omens to suggest that before lunchtime, her life would be in the toilet. Her breakfast egg was boiling on the stove. Through the kitchen window the sky was streaked optimistic orange. The elderly heating boiler was roaring away. In a moment the pipes would start their reassuring ticking and knocking. She relished this time to herself - before the day kicked off, before everybody began demanding bits of her. She would have relished it even more if it hadn't been for Mark Zuckerberg. 

Book description:
Knocking on sixty, Barbara Stirling is too busy caring for her mother, husband, children, and grandchildren. But when she loses her job, everything changes. Barbara is forced to face her feelings and doubts. Then a troubled, vulnerable little boy walks into her life and changes it forever.

MEME: Every Tuesday Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros sharing the first paragraph or two, from a book you are reading or will be reading soon.

Sunday Salon: Current Reads

Finished this week:

The Rules Do Not Apply by Ariel Levy, a memoir, May 14, 2017. Kindle edition.
My thoughts: 

The plight of the modern woman is outlined in this memoir: what happens or could happen when you want it all - all of life, together, at the same time, without necessarily making the sacrifices and trade-offs required for more predictable, stable outcomes. Revealing, honest. Still reading:  I Shot the Buddha by Colin Cotterill, The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian Death at Breakfast by Beth Gutcheon. New book on the shelf: Mangrove Lightning by Randy Wayne Wright, Doc Ford Mystery #24, March 21, 2017, Putnam Sons The ghosts of a 1925 multiple murder stalk Doc Ford in a new novel in the New York Times-bestselling series.Setting: Key Largo to Tallahassee The Night the Lights Went Out by Karen White, April 11, 2017, Berkley ...a young single mother discovers that the nature of friendship is never what it seems.. The Sunshine Sisters by Jane Green, June 6, 2017, Berkley. ... a mother asks her three estranged daughters to come home to help her end her life. Ebooks on loan from the library have dropped into my Kindle: The Nest by Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney The Dressmaker's Dowry by Meredith Jaeger What are you reading this week? Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date Also visit Mailbox Monday.

Book Beginning: Death at Breakfast by Beth Gutcheon

Death at Breakfast, a novel by Beth Gutcheon, May 10, 2016.

"... a stylish and witty mystery series featuring a pair of unlikely investigators—a shrewd novel of manners set in small-town New England." Featuring recently retired private school head Maggie Detweiler and society matron Hope Babbin in a psychological mystery. 

Book beginning:
Maggie Detweiler, new-minted woman of leisure and not at all sure she was going to like it, had no sense of impending tragedy as she posed in front of the broad stone veranda of the Oquossoc Mountain Inn that bright October morning. She didn't really know what made her say to Hope, "When your picture's being taken, don't you always wonder if it's the one that will run with your obituary?"

Page 56:
"I'm sorry. I know it's been difficult. I will have Cherry take the dog for a walk, and please apologize to the staff for me. There was an accident, this morning, you know, and we're all upset."

What are you reading this weekend?

Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.

First Chapter: Flight Patterns by Karen White

FLIGHT PATTERNS, a novel by Karen White, paperback published March 28, 2017.

See my review of the hardcover edition, May 2016.

First chapter:
Georgia April 2015
New Orleans

Memories are thieves. They slip behind you when you least expect it, their cold hands pressed against your face, suffocating. They blow icy-cold air even on the coldest days, and pinch you awake in the middle of the night. My grandfather had once told me that memories were like a faucet you could turn off or on at will, and that after I got to be as old as he was, I'd have figured out how it works. Maybe I just wasn't old enough, because my memories always had a way of getting stuck on the "on" position, flooding my mind with images and snatches of conversation I'd rather not relive. 

Book description:

Georgia Chambers' work as an expert on fine china—especially Limoges—requires her to return to her family home on the coast of Florida. She finds solace in seeing her grandfather still toiling away in the apiary where she spent much of her childhood, but encountering her estranged mother and sister leaves her rattled. 

MEMES: Every Tuesday Bibliophile by the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph, Tuesday Intros sharing the first paragraph or two, from a book you are reading or will be reading soon.

Teaser Tuesdays is hosted by The Purple Booker, where you can find the official rules for this weekly event. 

Sunday Salon: Spring At Last

We have seen the last of the snow for this year, I think. It will be rain from now on, and hopefully spring!!

I'm reading I Shot the Buddha by Colin Cotterill, a mystery with a lot of humor, set in Laos. I finished The Sleepwalker: A Novel by Chris Bohjalian, a mystery about a missing mother, with a twist at the end; and finished The Kommandant's Girl by Pam Jenoff. a WWII novel set in Poland. Also finished,  Cooking for Picasso, a novel by Camille Aubray, I enjoyed them all.

Two new books on my shelf:

A proof of Chemistry: A Novel by Weike Wang, May 23, 2017, by Knopf. 
Described as " a luminous coming-of-age novel about a young female scientist who must recalibrate her life when her academic career goes off track." Set in Boston.

The Last Chance Olive Ranch by Susan Wittig Albert, April 4, 2017, Berkley.
China Bayles fears for her husband’s life as an escaped convict targets him...

My Kindle borrows from the library:

The Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian, a novel published in 2013, about an Italian family, the Rosatis,  in Florence during WWII.  Fast forward to 1955, when someone is targeting the remainder of the Rosati family, and a young Florentine detective is assigned to the case.

Another intriguing historical novel of WWII. I finished the author's new novel, The Sleepwalker, and am looking up all his earlier novels. This is the first in the list that I'll be reading. 

I also have the ebook of 

The Dressmaker's Dowry by Meredith Jaeger, February 7, 2017, William Morrow.
The book description: "the story of two women: one, an immigrant seamstress who disappears from San Francisco’s gritty streets in 1876, and the other, a young woman in present day who must delve into the secrets of her husband’s wealthy family only to discover that she and the missing dressmaker might be connected in unexpected ways."

Unfinished books which I plan to get back to include: The Day I Died, The Sun King Conspiracy, and My Last Lament. 

What are you reading this week? 
Welcome to the Sunday Salon where bloggers share their reading each week. Visit The Sunday Post hosted by The Caffeinated Bookreviewer. Also visit It's Monday, What Are You Reading? hosted by Book Date

Book Beginning: I Shot the Buddha by Colin Cotterill

My lucky library find:

I Shot the Buddha by Colin Cotterill, published August 16, 2016, is the 11th in the Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery series, featuring retired coroner Siri Paiboun and his wife, Madame Daeng, in Laos. 

The couple share their small Vientiane house with an assortment of homeless people, mendicants, and oddballs. One of these is Noo, a Buddhist monk, who rides out on his bicycle one day and never comes back, leaving only a cryptic note in the refrigerator: a plea to help a fellow monk escape across the Mekhong River to Thailand. (publisher)

Book beginning:
It was midnight to the second with a full moon overhead when three women were being killed in three separate locations. Had this been the script of a film, such a twist of fate would have been the type of cinematic plot device that annoyed Comrades Siri and Civilai immensely. In their book coincidences came in a close third behind convenient amnesia and the sudden appearance of an identical twin. But this was real life, so there was no argument to be had. 

Page 56:
"I can't start a mission by losing face," he said.
"You're not. Nobody knows you're here. They haven't even seen your face. We can return tomorrow, refreshed, and they'll all be embarrassed about today and your face will be intact."  

What are you reading this Friday?
Memes: The Friday 56. Grab a book, turn to page 56 or 56% of your eReader. Find any sentence that grabs you. Post it, and add your URL post in Linky at Freda's Voice. Also visit Book Beginning at Rose City Reader.